On July 24, 2009, the U.S Department of Education
(DOE) announced that the "centerpiece of the Obama administration's education
reform efforts" in its "$4.35 billion Race to the Top," will include "adopting
internationally benchmarked education standards." These will be national
standards, said the press release, keyed to international standards and will be
incentivized to the states with federal "stimulus" dollars.

By the term "education standards" DOE means content standards; meaning
curriculum-the content schools must teach. By "national education standards" DOE
means that schools in all 50 states will teach the same content. This will
create a de facto federal curriculum. The Department of Education will
financially reward those states that teach what DOE wants taught. The Department
can be expected to insist that the values taught in the national curriculum
conform to the very liberal ideology of the Obama administration.

According to the announcement, this federal curriculum will consist of
"internationally benchmarked" standards. The only extant comprehensive
"internationally benchmarked" education standards are those developed by UNESCO,
the UN's education arm The UNESCO website clarifies that its education standards
conform to the treaties and agreements of the UN. This means that its curriculum
includes, for example, the requirements of the UN's Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (UDHR) which says, "Education shall . . . further the activities of
the United Nations" (Art. 26:2).

The UNESCO standards also include the UN's Earth Charter which further defines
internationally benchmarked standards. The Charter says these standards must
entail what it calls "sustainability education" (Art 14:b). The Charter explains
that "sustainability education" entails the "promotion of the equitable
distribution of wealth within nations and among nations" (Art. 10:a), nuclear
disarmament (Art. 16:d), gay marriage (Art. 12:a), legalized abortion (Art.
7:e), adoption of an "international legally binding instrument on environment"
(The way Forward), and indoctrination in pantheism (Art. 14d and Art. 16:f).

The National Governor's Association is enabling the Obama administration's plans
by calling for "voluntary national education standards." Goals 2000 of 1994 was
"voluntary," too, but most legislators were unaware of the fine print in the
companion bill, HR6, which required that states would lose all their federal
education funding if they failed to comply. That is why all 50 states joined
Goals 2000. The Obama administration has made it clear that it views "voluntary
national standards" the same way.